Don't worry, I'm alive!

I finally got access to the internet though it can be a bit unreliable at times.  I've arrived in the town where I'll be staying for the next 10 months!  For this post I'll just tell you about how the journey was and for the next post I'll tell you my first impressions of the town.

So, I was scheduled to fly to JFK and then go on to Narita but my flight to New York was so delayed due to maintenance that I was put on a flight to Detroit instead.  Getting on my flight to Tokyo was easy and the flight was good with only minor turbulence.  During the 13 hour flight I watched some of my favorite anime, Fullmetal Alchemist, on my laptop.  After watching an episode I noticed the young woman to my right seemed to be watching out of the corner of her eye so I asked her if she liked the show.  As it turned out she also liked it so I put the video to full-screen mode and let her watch too (yay for anime-camaraderie!).

Once I got to Narita I was informed that my checked bags had gone to New York instead (not really surprising) and so I gave them my Japanese address so that they could be shipped to me later.  My roommate (Anne) had suggested that I pack a week's worth of clothes in my carry-on anyway so I wasn't very worried.  I've got to hand it to the people at JET though, they are very organized.  With their help the other late-arriving JETs and I made it to the hotel with no problems.

I took some pictures of the hotel which I found to be amusing:

The room came with complementary yukata (pajamas) and slippers

The toilet came with several functions including a water spray and a seat warmer

 The bedside table had a copy of both the New Testament (which I was surprised to see) 

and The Teaching of Buddha

 

I took two trains the morning of the 29th: the first to Tokyo station and the second was the shinkansen up to Sendai.  The train rides were very pleasant and I had my first Japanese-only conversation when I asked the snack-selling lady for some orange juice.  Tokyo was as big as I had heard because it is so sprawling; many of the houses and apartment buildings are small though so I imagine that if one is down in the city it actually wouldn't feel so large.  Along the way I saw my first Japanese McDonald's, a bicycle parking lot, and Japanese-style graveyards (where there are family gravestones but where no one is actually buried since most people are cremated).  At one point on the shinkansen there was an announcement that the train would be split in two with one section headed north and the other west (that's time-efficient Japan for you!).

 The outskirts of Tokyo (sorry the pictures are skewed it's probably because the bullet train is so fast!)

 Finally out of the city!  Notice the mountains in the background

 Just outside of Sendai

In Sendai I met one of the JETs in charge of the area and he gave me a very brief orientation and lots of packets with information about Miyagi prefecture.  While there I tried to eat lunch but my stomach was still convinced that it was midnight and I didn't feel very hungry (darn jet-lag!).  While in the city I noticed several people wearing socks with sandals, a fashion which I always hoped would catch on in the US (but so far no such luck)!

From Sendai I took the bus to my town but I'll tell you all about that in my next post.